Duh. But you're still missing the point of my post, which was to say that no app in unix is intended to stand alone.
I think you're missing the point of the original post, though; nobody's arguing that bash is meant to stand alone; I think you may have jumped into the argument a few posts too late. If you write a compiler using bash, and do string manipulation through sed and awk, then you haven't written a compiler just using bash. You've used bash AND sed AND awk. We're talking about semantics here, not practical programming. --
Separation of Church and State isn't in the Constitution -- get a copy.
Article I of the Amendments to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That has been interpreted again and again by the Supreme Court to mean that state sponsored religious activities is unconstitutional. Even if you interpret the first clause to restrict only Congress, forcing religious activities on children is a violation of free speech.
--
he separation of Church and State in schools has led to a vacuum where once children were taught the proper ways to behave.
Blame the Constitution. Personally I like the fact that religion wasn't forced on me as a child.
Teach your kids morality at home, don't blame the schools for your shortcomings. --
Actually, slashdot is a non-zero sum game. When I have moderator points and mod somebody up, my own karma doesn't go down. Total karma is allowed to increase. OTOH, if I mod a stupid troll down, my karma doesn't increase to compensate, so it's also possible for total karma to decrease
I don't know, maybe we shouldn't differentiate between karma and moderation points; they're essentially the same thing. And you have to factor in metamoderation too. --
I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over me obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot. That would be such a shame.
Yes, it would be. Thankfully I do manage to snatch a few hours of sleep.
And you lose me towards the end there. What is economics if not the study of many human beings, each trying to maximise their happiness?
On a serious note, this is probably where our main differences stem from. In my mind economics is simply the movement of energy and resources through a society. It's only one part of the human equation. --
First of all, I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot.
Secondly, the post I responded to started out talking about "life", then turned it into a swipe at "leftist" economic thought. That's the part I was responding to. No, the economy isn't a closed system, but parts of it act like one, and historically we can see that most periods of extreme wealth in one segment of society also coincide with crushing poverty. Your analogy makes little sense, as I didn't talk about "human happiness". --
well...if you want to take it to a genetically deterministic extreme, the end of the game
could be when you pass along your genes to your offspring. --
Of course as long as football brings in as much money for colleges as it does here, competitive sports are hear to stay along with things like sports scholarships and other such BS.
Actually I read somewhere that the vast majority of college athletic programs are financial losses for the schools; only the top few actually make money. The only explanation for funding them I can think of is that administrators are sure that they'll a) either be able to eventually turn one, or b) they're convinced that they wouldn't be a 'real' college without them. I've always been rather proud of the fact that my alma mater de-emphasized sports, even going so far as to boast about the lack of teams in a recruiting poster. --
On another, slightly more disturbing note, I am somewhat concerned about the use of academic funding to compete with commercial
enterprises. Just because RMS does it doesn't make it right.
Personally, I'm not concerned at all. This is something the private sector has no business trying to commercialize; to hell with them.
So academic institutions should meekly avoid doing anything that might compete with a bunch of venture capitalists? They should restrict their own freedom of speech, thought, and action because making money has some sort of higher purpose than anything they can aspire to? Damn it, money isn't morality. --
Now I finally can reminisce by reading my old rec.arts.sf.written trolls and the beautiful flamewars that they caused (Heinlein fans tend to be a humorless bunch) --
For some of us (ok, maybe just me) the smaller the better.
I'm nostalgic for the good old days, when men were men and desktops were built like tanks and the fans sounded like jet engines. Powering up a computer was an event with those things.
--
I've scanned the various vendors I found on ResellerRatings.com, and I've found that a lot of the small-scale screwdriver factories offer better prices than Dell or Gateway.
My recommendations:
Go with athlon/duron and slash hundreds off your price.
Make the website as professional as you can. Pick a good name. If you appear successful people will often assume you are.
Make your life easier; make windows the default OS. You'd have problems otherwise.
Don't bet on it succeeding. Look at it like a restaurant; you'll most likely go out of business. Try it if you think you can have fun with it, but don't bet the family farm that it will be successful.
--
How do you know that they won't turn YOU down? Do you really know all there is to know about your genetic code that you can be so sure of yourself that you wouldn't be excluded altogether or pay astronomical premiums?
Now that's a great point; wish I'd thought of it. Though I'm sure most slashdotters are confident that their genes are without major flaws... --
"Right wing" is a relative term that, in the U.S., conventionally means socially conservative/traditional/authoritarian plus economically liberal, if not anarchist. "Left wing" used to mean the opposite, i.e., socially liberal or even anarchist, but economically authoritarian. It appears that the left is becoming socially authoritarian in recent times as well ("political correctness," etc).
The terms stretches beyond the US; when used internationally it's a slightly more vague term. It's also somewhat fluid term; what the left and right represent changes somewhat over time. Still you've hit a basically fair definition; as somewhat to the left I disagree with the political correct atmosphere that infects it, though I think people overestimate just how pervasive it is. That said, while libertarians might differ with the right on certain issues, I think there are another similarities to put it in the same broad group that includes republicans and conservatives. Of course it's not my call, but the rest of society seems to basically agree; witness the Cato Institute, which is termed a libertarian think tank now, but which I've heard referred to as a conservative think tank many times in the past.
"Moderates" are compromisers and pragmatists with no firm beliefs other than the roads should be paved, the kids should be healthy, and there should be good stuff on TV. I.e., keep the ball rolling.
I'll have to object to your views of moderates.
I fall into the left-moderate category; moderation can also be a simple recognition of the fact that maybe I don't have all the answers, and I may be wrong in some things. That's what separates the zealots from those who are truly open in their thinking. True democracy can be categorized by a balance of views I think.
And what the Republicans or Democrats trot out as "free trade" is not capitalism; it is governments lowering tarriffs and subsidies, yes; but it makes no provision for justice and freedom.
But neither does libertarianism as I've seen it most often expressed. I've noticed libertarians tend to be very isolationist in terms of promoting the ideas of "justice" abroad.
And "free enterprise" is not capitalism. It seems to mean that individuals get to start licensed businesses doing approved things, and then lobby the government for special protections and subsidies. Capitalism rests on the premise that each person will work for themselves; neither enslaving or exploting others or being enslaved or exploited.
It's interesting how such a staunch anti-Communist as Rand takes a somewhat Marxist view of the underlying form of society; resources and labor as forming the structure of society. Admittedly I haven't had much exposure to Rand; what philosophical training I have has been in university philosophy departments, which tend to discount her as a serious philosopher; strangely enough, I found that one of the few philosophical analyses of Rand's work was written by a former professor of mine, though I don't remember any Randian thought infiltrating the course. What I have seen and heard, however, is pretty distasteful. She seems to combine Nietzche and Adam Smith, taking out the philosophical rigor and cramming it all into what appear to be truly awful novels which seem to appeal mainly to teenagers and college students with persecution complexes.
"The only proper propose of a government is to protect man's rights,
That statement by itself isn't really that disagreeable, though I'd also propose that governments should also serve as ways to coordinate large-scale projects that are too large for private individuals to run (i.e. space program, highway system, etc).
The problem I have with objectivists is their idea of "rights" consists solely of negative ones (in the philosophical sense of an obligation not to do something rather than do something). This isn't a bad idea in say a frontier society, where every person has more or less as much space as he or she wants between themselves and other people. But this planet has gotten too crowded for governments to be reactive rather than proactive in these kinds of things. For example, I believe in strong, what you might even call authoritarian, environmental regulations. Yes, it impedes business interests and economic freedom, but I think maintaining the integrity of our environment is more important.
I just realized this post isn't that coherent; chalk it up to an extremely irregular sleep schedule. --
interesting claim. I see lots of people who claim to be libertarian/right-wing/randian (it seems weird to combine those three...) who are actually exceptionally liberal.
I suspect its the fault of universities in the US, but whatever, I certainly don't care if other people aren't smart enough to think their views all the way through.
As far as I'm concerned if you call yourself a libertarian, and follow basic libertarian tenets you're a libertarian. Even if you're not considered one by some purists.
As for the libertarian/right-wing/objectivist combination, they're very much related movements. Libertarians and objectivists follow pretty much the same beliefs, even if there are a few philosophical differences between the two. And libertarianism fits quite comfortably on the right wing of the right-left axis, even though many like to consider themselves above such classifications. --
Okay, first, I voted for GWB and would scare most slashdotters with my right-wing views. But in my old age, I am coming to soften my Randian views in a few areas.
Ummm...are you new? Slashdot has a huge libertarian/right-wing/Randian segment. Try posting as one of us leftists if you want to scare most slashdotters...
--
Hmmm, I stand corrected. Was going on old data I guess. Though those numbers seem a little off; I don't see how you can go from 20% to 48% of all desktops; I don't think most people upgrade their graphics cards, and I can't imagine that enough new desktops were produced this year to produce that number. They probably meant in new desktops sold that year.
Anyway, I agree that nVidia makes great cards, but at least ATI's Radeon is giving the GeForce a run for it's money. I usually recommend GeForces, but the Radeons seem to be able to beat them (except the Ultra of course) at high resolutions in 32-bit. Competition doesn't go away when one company gets market dominance, just when all the other companies go out of business.
--
Slashdot Mirror
Duh. But you're still missing the point of my post, which was to say that no app in unix is intended to stand alone.
I think you're missing the point of the original post, though; nobody's arguing that bash is meant to stand alone; I think you may have jumped into the argument a few posts too late. If you write a compiler using bash, and do string manipulation through sed and awk, then you haven't written a compiler just using bash. You've used bash AND sed AND awk. We're talking about semantics here, not practical programming.
--
Ah, grasshopper, you are missing the whole point of Unix - The pipe. Everything on Unix is [intended to be] part of everything else.
By that logic I could make a C compiler by just making a bash script that runs gcc...
--
Hmm, now that you've been shut down, suddenly it's OK to publish a laundry-list of flaws about the competition? Shady.
Ummm....shady? I would be a lot shadier to have done it when napster was still a competitor...
--
Separation of Church and State isn't in the Constitution -- get a copy.
Article I of the Amendments to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That has been interpreted again and again by the Supreme Court to mean that state sponsored religious activities is unconstitutional. Even if you interpret the first clause to restrict only Congress, forcing religious activities on children is a violation of free speech.
--
he separation of Church and State in schools has led to a vacuum where once children were taught the proper ways to behave.
Blame the Constitution. Personally I like the fact that religion wasn't forced on me as a child. Teach your kids morality at home, don't blame the schools for your shortcomings.
--
Actually, slashdot is a non-zero sum game. When I have moderator points and mod somebody up, my own karma doesn't go down. Total karma is allowed to increase. OTOH, if I mod a stupid troll down, my karma doesn't increase to compensate, so it's also possible for total karma to decrease
I don't know, maybe we shouldn't differentiate between karma and moderation points; they're essentially the same thing. And you have to factor in metamoderation too.
--
What a thoroughly civilised way for a thread to peter out.
I know, I can't help feeling we're doing something wrong...
--
I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over me obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot. That would be such a shame.
Yes, it would be. Thankfully I do manage to snatch a few hours of sleep.
And you lose me towards the end there. What is economics if not the study of many human beings, each trying to maximise their happiness?
On a serious note, this is probably where our main differences stem from. In my mind economics is simply the movement of energy and resources through a society. It's only one part of the human equation.
--
First of all, I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot.
Secondly, the post I responded to started out talking about "life", then turned it into a swipe at "leftist" economic thought. That's the part I was responding to. No, the economy isn't a closed system, but parts of it act like one, and historically we can see that most periods of extreme wealth in one segment of society also coincide with crushing poverty. Your analogy makes little sense, as I didn't talk about "human happiness".
--
well...if you want to take it to a genetically deterministic extreme, the end of the game could be when you pass along your genes to your offspring.
--
Of course as long as football brings in as much money for colleges as it does here, competitive sports are hear to stay along with things like sports scholarships and other such BS.
Actually I read somewhere that the vast majority of college athletic programs are financial losses for the schools; only the top few actually make money. The only explanation for funding them I can think of is that administrators are sure that they'll a) either be able to eventually turn one, or b) they're convinced that they wouldn't be a 'real' college without them. I've always been rather proud of the fact that my alma mater de-emphasized sports, even going so far as to boast about the lack of teams in a recruiting poster.
--
People often mistakenly assume that someone's gain is necessarily someone else's loss.
That's not "left-wing theory". It's called the laws of thermodynamics.
--
Don't post on slashdot anymore pal. This site is for people with brains in their heads, not prejudism in their heart.
You must be new...
--
or maybe I've just been playing too much Alpha Centauri.
/. /HTML.
There's no such thing as too much Alpha Centauri.
And could someone mod that post I quoted up? That has to be the funniest thing I've ever read on
--
On another, slightly more disturbing note, I am somewhat concerned about the use of academic funding to compete with commercial enterprises. Just because RMS does it doesn't make it right.
Personally, I'm not concerned at all. This is something the private sector has no business trying to commercialize; to hell with them.
So academic institutions should meekly avoid doing anything that might compete with a bunch of venture capitalists? They should restrict their own freedom of speech, thought, and action because making money has some sort of higher purpose than anything they can aspire to? Damn it, money isn't morality.
--
If you don't want to read about vaporware, then you should probably read buy.com instead of slashdot.org.
--
Now I finally can reminisce by reading my old rec.arts.sf.written trolls and the beautiful flamewars that they caused (Heinlein fans tend to be a humorless bunch)
--
For some of us (ok, maybe just me) the smaller the better.
I'm nostalgic for the good old days, when men were men and desktops were built like tanks and the fans sounded like jet engines. Powering up a computer was an event with those things.
--
I've scanned the various vendors I found on ResellerRatings.com, and I've found that a lot of the small-scale screwdriver factories offer better prices than Dell or Gateway.
My recommendations:
Go with athlon/duron and slash hundreds off your price.
Make the website as professional as you can. Pick a good name. If you appear successful people will often assume you are.
Make your life easier; make windows the default OS. You'd have problems otherwise.
Don't bet on it succeeding. Look at it like a restaurant; you'll most likely go out of business. Try it if you think you can have fun with it, but don't bet the family farm that it will be successful.
--
I thought about a methadone replacement, but that might just be me.
Yes, I think that is just you.
--
How do you know that they won't turn YOU down? Do you really know all there is to know about your genetic code that you can be so sure of yourself that you wouldn't be excluded altogether or pay astronomical premiums?
Now that's a great point; wish I'd thought of it. Though I'm sure most slashdotters are confident that their genes are without major flaws...
--
"Right wing" is a relative term that, in the U.S., conventionally means socially conservative/traditional/authoritarian plus economically liberal, if not anarchist. "Left wing" used to mean the opposite, i.e., socially liberal or even anarchist, but economically authoritarian. It appears that the left is becoming socially authoritarian in recent times as well ("political correctness," etc).
The terms stretches beyond the US; when used internationally it's a slightly more vague term. It's also somewhat fluid term; what the left and right represent changes somewhat over time. Still you've hit a basically fair definition; as somewhat to the left I disagree with the political correct atmosphere that infects it, though I think people overestimate just how pervasive it is. That said, while libertarians might differ with the right on certain issues, I think there are another similarities to put it in the same broad group that includes republicans and conservatives. Of course it's not my call, but the rest of society seems to basically agree; witness the Cato Institute, which is termed a libertarian think tank now, but which I've heard referred to as a conservative think tank many times in the past.
"Moderates" are compromisers and pragmatists with no firm beliefs other than the roads should be paved, the kids should be healthy, and there should be good stuff on TV. I.e., keep the ball rolling.
I'll have to object to your views of moderates. I fall into the left-moderate category; moderation can also be a simple recognition of the fact that maybe I don't have all the answers, and I may be wrong in some things. That's what separates the zealots from those who are truly open in their thinking. True democracy can be categorized by a balance of views I think.
And what the Republicans or Democrats trot out as "free trade" is not capitalism; it is governments lowering tarriffs and subsidies, yes; but it makes no provision for justice and freedom.
But neither does libertarianism as I've seen it most often expressed. I've noticed libertarians tend to be very isolationist in terms of promoting the ideas of "justice" abroad.
And "free enterprise" is not capitalism. It seems to mean that individuals get to start licensed businesses doing approved things, and then lobby the government for special protections and subsidies. Capitalism rests on the premise that each person will work for themselves; neither enslaving or exploting others or being enslaved or exploited.
It's interesting how such a staunch anti-Communist as Rand takes a somewhat Marxist view of the underlying form of society; resources and labor as forming the structure of society. Admittedly I haven't had much exposure to Rand; what philosophical training I have has been in university philosophy departments, which tend to discount her as a serious philosopher; strangely enough, I found that one of the few philosophical analyses of Rand's work was written by a former professor of mine, though I don't remember any Randian thought infiltrating the course. What I have seen and heard, however, is pretty distasteful. She seems to combine Nietzche and Adam Smith, taking out the philosophical rigor and cramming it all into what appear to be truly awful novels which seem to appeal mainly to teenagers and college students with persecution complexes.
"The only proper propose of a government is to protect man's rights,
That statement by itself isn't really that disagreeable, though I'd also propose that governments should also serve as ways to coordinate large-scale projects that are too large for private individuals to run (i.e. space program, highway system, etc).
The problem I have with objectivists is their idea of "rights" consists solely of negative ones (in the philosophical sense of an obligation not to do something rather than do something). This isn't a bad idea in say a frontier society, where every person has more or less as much space as he or she wants between themselves and other people. But this planet has gotten too crowded for governments to be reactive rather than proactive in these kinds of things. For example, I believe in strong, what you might even call authoritarian, environmental regulations. Yes, it impedes business interests and economic freedom, but I think maintaining the integrity of our environment is more important.
I just realized this post isn't that coherent; chalk it up to an extremely irregular sleep schedule.
--
interesting claim. I see lots of people who claim to be libertarian/right-wing/randian (it seems weird to combine those three...) who are actually exceptionally liberal. I suspect its the fault of universities in the US, but whatever, I certainly don't care if other people aren't smart enough to think their views all the way through.
As far as I'm concerned if you call yourself a libertarian, and follow basic libertarian tenets you're a libertarian. Even if you're not considered one by some purists.
As for the libertarian/right-wing/objectivist combination, they're very much related movements. Libertarians and objectivists follow pretty much the same beliefs, even if there are a few philosophical differences between the two. And libertarianism fits quite comfortably on the right wing of the right-left axis, even though many like to consider themselves above such classifications.
--
Okay, first, I voted for GWB and would scare most slashdotters with my right-wing views. But in my old age, I am coming to soften my Randian views in a few areas.
Ummm...are you new? Slashdot has a huge libertarian/right-wing/Randian segment. Try posting as one of us leftists if you want to scare most slashdotters...
--
Hmmm, I stand corrected. Was going on old data I guess. Though those numbers seem a little off; I don't see how you can go from 20% to 48% of all desktops; I don't think most people upgrade their graphics cards, and I can't imagine that enough new desktops were produced this year to produce that number. They probably meant in new desktops sold that year.
Anyway, I agree that nVidia makes great cards, but at least ATI's Radeon is giving the GeForce a run for it's money. I usually recommend GeForces, but the Radeons seem to be able to beat them (except the Ultra of course) at high resolutions in 32-bit. Competition doesn't go away when one company gets market dominance, just when all the other companies go out of business.
--